


That Flower of Honesty

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Developing Relationship, Drinking, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 09:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5329355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire receives flowers from an anonymous source, and Bossuet and Joly decide to help him solve the case of the mystery identity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Flower of Honesty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weisbrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weisbrot/gifts).



> For [weisbrot](http://tmblr.co/m4cXPndCHo3tS-pfCUL9grA), who requested E/R, pre-relationship, with one giving the other flowers. So I did my best and made it canon-era just because I could.
> 
> Title is from the Brick.
> 
> Usual disclaimer applies. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos!

“Bossuet, my good man, you really shouldn’t have,” Grantaire proclaimed, sweeping into the café and plucking the hat off Bossuet’s head before jamming it over his dark curls and slumping into the seat across from Bossuet and Joly, noticeably lacking his usual perfume of wine and opium. **  
**

“Indeed, I likely shouldn’t have,” Bossuet said, snatching Joly’s hat and recovering his bald head. “However, I know not what I should not have done.”

Joly did not even bother to look affronted, merely sighing wearily as he recaptured Bossuet’s hat from Grantaire and placing it delicately on his head. “Tell us, Grantaire, what is it that Bossuet’s done now?”

Bossuet scowled, clearly taking issue with the ‘now’, but Grantaire frowned slightly. “I received a bouquet,” he told them. “Some kind soul left fresh-cut flowers outside my door this morning, and I assumed it was Bossuet.”

“Why would you not assume it was me?” Joly demanded.

Grantaire raised an eyebrow at him. “Would not the flowers have made you sneeze?” he asked bluntly.

Joly considered it. “Valid point,” he allowed, helping himself to an oyster.

Turning back to Bossuet, Grantaire asked, his brow still furrowed, “So if it was not you leaving the flowers, who possibly could it have been?”

“A fine lady lover?” Joly suggested, while Bossuet offered, “A gentleman with the wrong address?”

Grantaire scowled. “Neither is particularly likely. I’ve not taken a lover in…” He trailed off. “Well, suffice it to say, some time. And my quarters are not exactly easy to find, even for those who know where to look.”

Joly frowned and propped his chin on his fist. “Then it seems we have a mystery on our hands,” he said.

“A mystery!” Bossuet, cried, half-rising from his seat in his excitement. “We shall solve it together, the three of us.”

Joly nodded sagely, grabbing the wine bottle from the table and pouring each of them a sizeable glass. “Indeed we shall.” He raised his glass. “But first, we drink.”

“But first we drink!” Grantaire and Bossuet echoed in unison, clinking their glasses against Joly’s.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, sufficiently sated, Joly, Bossuet and Grantaire spilled from the café, all grinning. Bossuet rubbed his hands together, looking excited. “So, where do we start?” he asked.

“Well, we can rule out Jehan and Bahorel,” Grantaire said.

“Oh?” Joly inquired.

Grantaire shrugged. “The flowers led me to think Jehan initially, given the garden -- such as it is -- that our dear Prouvaire cultivates, but the colors were too pale and matched too well for Jehan’s touch. And Bahorel -- well, let’s just say that I beat him in boxing this week and leave it at that.”

He sounded smug, and Bossuet rolled his eyes. “Could he not have sent them as a peace offering?”

It was Joly who looked most skeptical at that. “Bahorel?” he asked. “The man and peace do not belong in the same sentence.”

Bossuet shook his head. “Fine, then we’ve ruled out four of our number -- five if you count Grantaire, as I do not believe he made this up as an elaborate ruse--”

“No, but I should have,” Grantaire mused. “Perhaps the next time I am bored...”

Bossuet ignored him. “So that leaves only Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Combeferre and Enjolras.”

“Yes, because our Noble Leader would deign to send something as useless as flowers,” Grantaire said, a of vitriol coloring his sarcasm.

Joly ignored him. “Feuilly is a possibility,” he remarked, as they strolled down the sidewalk, a bit unevenly. “He is often thoughtful like that, more than we give him credit for.”

Grantaire shrugged, looking troubled. “But why would Feuilly send me flowers?” he asked. “For that matter, why would Combeferre? Or Courfeyrac? I would pretend that it is just my charming personality that merits fine flowers, but I would not wish to hear your laughter right now.”

Bossuet and Joly exchanged glances, and Bossuet asked casually, “Indeed, Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Feuilly may not have reason, but what of Enjolras? You did not mention him.”

Stopping in his tracks, so quickly that he almost knocked Bossuet and Joly over, Grantaire shook his head. “But...but…” he stuttered, before muttering under his breath, so fast that Joly and Bossuet could barely follow, “He and I have been moving perhaps towards friendship or at the very least away from enmity, up until last night when one thing led to another and words were exchanged, but given as how the man has never once expressed an ounce of regret no matter what he has said to me in passing, why in the world would he start now, and why would he start with something such as useless as flowers when he would be far more likely to, I don’t know, help the poor in my name as a gesture of apology?”

Joly blinked. “That...sounds like a question for Enjolras,” he said, slurring slightly on the s’s in Enjolras’s name.

“If there even was a question in that,” Bossuet muttered.

“I can’t just go ask Enjolras if he sent me flowers,” Grantaire protested.

“Oh yes you can,” Joly said, pushing Grantaire forward, and only just managing to catch the back of his waistcoat before he dove face-first onto the street. “Bossuet and I are right behind you.”

Bossuet grabbed Joly’s arm. “This is a monumentally terrible idea,” he hissed.

Joly just beamed and patted Bossuet’s cheek clumsily. “We make excellent detectives!”

* * *

“We make terrible detectives,” Joly said sadly, his statement interrupted by a hiccup as they stared miserably into the backroom of the Musain, where Grantaire, it would appear, had just blurted out the question to Enjolras, who looked startled and a little peeved.

Bossuet shook his head and sighed. “No, it’s the wine that does not make a good detective. It dulls the mind and--”

He broke off, because Joly had elbowed him in the ribs, hard. “Look!”

Blinking blearily, Bossuest peered into the backroom at Enjolras, who was smiling, almost shyly, and -- was that a blush on his cheeks? “Am I hallucinating from wine?” Bossuet croaked.

“It takes far more than that to make you hallucinate,” Joly muttered, though he was squinting as if he could not believe it as well.

They watched together as Enjolras rubbed the back of his neck, a little shamefacedly, as Grantaire smiled, a little too delightfully, though he also blushed before inclining his head in what looked like the most sincere thanks they had ever witnessed the man give. Enjolras reached out to cover Grantaire’s hand where it rested lightly on the back of one chair with his own hand, and the two men lingered there for a moment, lost in their own world and oblivious to their audience.

Then, almost too quickly, Enjolras withdrew his hand, smiled at Grantaire, and left, Joly and Bossuet barely managing to duck out of the way before he spotted them rather obviously ogling. Once they judged that he was far enough gone, they went into the backroom with feigned nonchalance, joining Grantaire where he was had sat down in a chair, smiling as he propped his chin on his hand. “What did he say?” Joly asked, uncharacteristically blunt, and Bossuet elbowed him in the ribs.

When Grantaire merely shook his head, Bossuet asked, a little hopefully, “Was the mystery at least solved?”

Now Grantaire looked at them both, his smile widening. “Oh, my friends,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair, his eyes gleaming. “The mystery has only deepened.”


End file.
